Having a new baby is an exciting experience, but it is not without its challenges. One particular challenge that often surprises new parents is how often newborn babies need to feed. Numerous advice guides exist to inform new parents of the heavy responsibilities of breastfeeding their newborns, particularly during the first week of the baby's life.
During these initial stages, a newborn's stomach is very small, around 1 to 2 tsp in size. This will take some time to stretch, but until then, babies frequently need to eat very often, around 8 to 12 times a day, in order to gain weight and grow. As such, babies will often eat every 2 hours, or even more frequently than this. Often, a baby will want several feedings close together until they are satisfied and go to sleep. These are called “cluster feedings,” and can occur much more frequently, commonly up to every 20 minutes for some sustained period of time. The length of time that the baby can spend feeding is also somewhat variable and can be very long. For example, some babies can eat for around 45 to 60 minutes several times in a row in short succession, with only small breaks in between, after which they can sleep for several hours. In other cases, babies may only eat for 10 to 15 minutes, but may feed much more regularly, around 30 to 40 minutes around the clock. An average feeding during the first week typically lasts around 20 to 40 minutes with some pauses, with this gradually changing as the newborn ages. Likewise, by the first week, the mother's milk will typically come in in order to provide the baby with more food at each feeding, though it is typically advised to start the baby at the opposite breast at each feeding in order to ensure that the breast does not start out depleted.
Bottle feeding is a little different, with the main difference being that the baby has access to a much larger supply of milk or formula. It is typically advised that parents feed their babies around ½ ounce, or around 2 to 3 teaspoons, of milk or formula per feeding, during the first day. Babies will gradually want to take a little more each day, often around ½ ounce more each day, up to around 3 ounces after the first couple of weeks.
When bottle feeding, it is advised to feed the baby at least 8 times per day, or around every three hours. The baby may have some longer stretches between feedings (up to around 5 hours) and may have shorter stretches during cluster feedings and growth spurts. Parents are also advised to burp their baby at the conclusion of each feeding, or after around each ½ ounce, for the first several weeks. If the baby spits up a large amount of their feeding, this means that the baby may be overeating, need more burping, or need to eat more slowly, each of which may require further intervention from the parents. Just as with breastfeeding, this will change gradually over time as the baby grows.
The frequency with which babies must be fed puts a strain on new parents, who are already struggling with interrupted sleep schedules and trying to accomplish everyday tasks like answering the phone, washing dishes, and making dinner. While this is particularly true for breastfeeding parents, as noted above it can commonly be the case for bottle-feeding parents as well.
Feeding is, of course, not the only challenge that new parents face. One other common challenge for new parents is the financial cost of buying new baby clothes and accessories. It is expected that an average middle-income family will spend upwards of $10,000 per year on child-related expenses, with much of this being new clothes in different sizes, which can easily come to around $1000/year. (A “budget” plan estimates around $60/month, or $720/year, should be spent on clothes; this can easily climb higher.) The old clothes quickly become useless for the baby and do not fit, and therefore are often discarded, donated, or resold. Other accessories, such as strollers or car seats, may also need to be rotated out as the baby grows, depending on what size of baby they can accommodate.
Finally, parents also face the challenge of how to teach their babies and young children useful skills. There is an extremely large market for baby toys or other accessories that serve some developmental purpose, as well as facilitating play; for example, numerous toys advertise that they offer “a great mix of fun and education,” or are “science-y toys that help build the developing brainpower of your baby.” Functional accessories, too, often serve some developmental purpose or otherwise rely heavily on the ability of the baby. Certain bottle holder designs exist, for example, which rely heavily on the ability of the baby to hold the bottle in place. However, this isn't an option for younger children, who frequently knock their bottles over, defeating the purpose of the holder and often causing a large mess to be made. As discussed above, many accessories also suffer from sizing limitations, based not only on the size of the baby but on the size of the baby's other accessories; if a baby requires a larger bottle, this new larger bottle size may not fit in an existing bottle holder. Likewise, certain bottle shapes may be different and may be incompatible with a certain size of bottle holder. Likewise, many bottle holder options may not permit much movement on the part of the baby or the caregiver, which may be distressing for the baby and may be inconvenient for the caregiver.